Vets ask for more funding at hearing

When Iraq veteran Robert Wake returned home to Malden, Mo., he found himself homeless.

"I came home to absolutely nothing," Wake testified at a hearing Tuesday before the Missouri House Interim Committee on Veterans Services. He returned to Malden after having spent a year in General Leonard Wood Army Community Hospital receiving treatment for injuries sustained in the war,

The hearing, held at the VFW at 1049 N. Kingshighway in Cape Girardeau, was one of six being held throughout the state between now and Veterans Day. The committee, appointed last month by House Speaker Rod Jetton, is holding the hearings to give Missourians the opportunity to voice their concerns on whether the state's veterans receive the support they need and deserve.

"It is so important that we look at soldiers that are coming home and their families because families are so important to the healing process," Wake said during his testimony.

After returning from Iraq in 2004, he was separated from his family for another year while hospitalized because they couldn't afford to travel to see him, during which time his son struggled to adjust and his grades began to suffer, he said.

Providing funds so veterans could afford assisted living or home health care while keeping their families near them would be greatly beneficial to people like Wake, several speakers from the Missouri Veterans Commission and other veterans rights groups testified.

In addition, making use of portable radiological services might enable veterans to receive the MRIs and X-rays they need without the stress associated with traveling to one of the veterans hospitals, testified Sheila Holloway of Cape Girardeau, a veteran of Desert Storm who had worked as a post surgeon.

As an alternative source of funding is needed to eliminate the constant challenge of meeting the needs of Missouri veterans, said Dewey Riehn, spokesman for the Missouri Association of Veterans Organizations.

Riehn suggested allowing Missourians the chance to vote on a bill that would implement a one-eighth of 1 percent sales tax. That would generate money needed for veterans' programs, such as mental health services, transportation to and from medical centers and assisted living costs.

Rep. Walt Bivens, R-St. Louis, inquired about a 2003 bill that took revenue from the gaming commission that had been supplementing the Veterans Commission Capital Improvement Trust Fund and transferred some of that money to a fund for "early childhood development, education and care."

When the veterans commission agreed to share the funds with the early child development commission, they had thought they were agreeing to an equal split, but instead ended up with much less after the bill was passed, Riehn said.

Also at the hearing, Harold Dulle, executive director of the Missouri Veterans Commission, proposed six new 90-bed veterans homes in Missouri, at a cost of $114 million, in addition to the seven long-term nursing care facilities already in the state.

bdicosmo@semissourian.com

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